Premium
CONCURRENT SECOND‐ORDER SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT 1
Author(s) -
Cohen Steven L.
Publication year - 1975
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1975.24-333
Subject(s) - changeover , reinforcement , schedule , stimulus (psychology) , matching law , mathematics , statistics , computer science , matching (statistics) , psychology , social psychology , cognitive psychology , telecommunications , transmission (telecommunications) , operating system
Responses on one key (the main key) of a two‐key chamber produced food according to a second‐order variable‐interval schedule with fixed‐interval schedule components. A response on a second key (the changeover key) alternated colors on the main key and provided a second independent second‐order variable‐interval schedule with fixed‐interval components. The fixed‐interval component on one variable‐interval schedule was held constant at 8 sec, while the fixed interval on the other variable‐interval schedule was varied from 0 to 32 sec. Under some conditions, a brief stimulus terminated each fixed interval and generated fixed‐interval patterns; in other conditions, the brief stimulus was omitted. Relative response rate and relative time deviated substantially from scheduled relative reinforcement rate and, to a lesser extent, from obtained relative reinforcement rate under both brief‐stimulus and no‐stimulus conditions. Matching was observed with equal components on both schedules; with unequal components, increasingly greater proportions of time and responses than the matching relation would predict were spent on the variable‐interval schedule containing the shorter component. Preference for the shorter fixed interval was typically more extreme under brief‐stimulus than under no‐stimulus schedules. The results limit the extension of the matching relation typically observed under simple concurrent variable‐interval schedules to concurrent second‐order variable‐interval schedules.